Dominic West Joins Maura Tierney And Joshua Jackson In Showtime Drama That Otherwise Should Have Come Out In 1997

"If it's a drama, we're gonna have to have people crying and yelling," one Showtime exec probably said.

While Showtime got traction with Homeland, they've had a hard time shaking their dramedy roster to make the leap into honest-to-goodness drama. Both the premises and the writing on their earlier shows have made it almost impossible to get too moved by their goings on.

BUT WAIT. Enter The Affair, a show that's not about a thirteen episode black tie dinner party, but rather marital infidelity. That's pretty dramatic, no? Even if you don't think it's all that high stakes, what if the married people had kids? Lost innocence. That could raise the stakes.

What may or may not also raise the stakes is the participation of Joshua Jackson and Maura Tierney, two actors who, while solid, aren't the types I'd burden with the responsibility of leading roles.

So the producers of The Affair went ahead and got McNulty from The Wire. That should lend some instant credibility.

Did I mention that Jackson plays a cowboy who resides on a ranch in Long Island? Because that merited mentioning a second ago when I was talking about Showtime's difficulty in nailing certain aspects of TV drama.